Winning Post

Horse trainer Gai Waterhouse

Duration: 15 minutes

‘Winning Post’ this month features Australia’s major thoroughbred horse race, also known as “the race that stops a nation”: the prestigious Melbourne Cup.

The show first meets with Gai Waterhouse, a former model turned horse trainer (pictured). “Australia’s First Lady of Racing” had just two weeks to train her entry into this year’s race. She tells host Francesca Cumani how she plans to win the only title that has so far eluded her.

Also this month Cumani speaks with her father, world-renowned trainer Luca Cumani, who has twice finished second in Australia’s most famous race.

‘Winning Post’ then takes a look at what makes the Melbourne Cup distinct from any other race. Australians get to enjoy a state day holiday in honour of the event and Melbourne plays host to exultant crowds lining the streets for the parade of champions.

The programme  concludes with a glimpse of the Longines Singapore Gold Cup, a country that is celebrating 170 years of horse racing.

Host Kristie Lu Stout discusses Chinese consumerism with her guests Karl Gerth, Janet Wang and Shaun Rein (left to right).

Duration: 30 minutes

CNN’s new series ‘On China’ is the first by any international television news network to regularly focus on the country. Shot on location in Hong Kong at the historic Hullett House, in each show Lu Stout meets with leading figures in culture and business from within China’s borders for a roundtable discussion about what really drives this world power and economic giant.

The second edition of the programme takes a close look at Chinese consumerism. Set to surpass Japan in consumer spending next year, China is home to the largest auto market in the world and its core consumer class is some 430 million strong.  Consumer demand is a trend that is dramatically reshaping the social and economic fabric of China and the world.

Host Kristie Lu Stout invites Karl Gerth, professor of Chinese Studies at Oxford University; Janet Wang, head of International Business Development for TMall.com plus  Shaun Rein, Managing Director of the China Market Research Group (pictured left to right) to join her for an in-depth conversation about the Chinese consumer – who they are, what they want, and what their spending habits mean for the global economy.

Inside the Middle East

Amr Mohammed, the 19-year old Egyptian student who won the opportunity to have an experiment of his choosing conducted on the International Space Station

Duration: 30 minutes

December’s ‘Inside the Middle East’ looks back at a remarkable year in the world of the arts, culture, and lifestyle across this traditional but dynamic region.  This end-of-year episode revisits the programme’s most inspiring characters – from the shores of Morocco to the remote deserts of Kuwait, and nearly everywhere in between – to see how, and if, things have changed.

One of the biggest stories ‘Inside the Middle East’  covered in 2012 was the run-up to the Olympic Games, which offered many Middle Eastern female athletes a rare public stage to compete and test their abilities to score points for society, both on and off the court. The show again meets Lina Al-Maeena, the captain of Jeddah United, one of Saudi Arabia’s first organized female sports teams, to get her take on the likelihood of a post-Olympic future for Saudi women in sport.

The show also catches up with 19-year-old student Amr Mohamed (pictured), a young Egyptian who had won a highly competitive science competition. The prize? A chance to launch a science project of his choosing into outer space for testing!  Amr’s experiment, which would explore how zero gravity affects the habits of jumping spiders, was rocketed to the International Space Station this Autumn. ‘Inside the Middle East’ meets him on his university campus for an update.